by JK Cooper
His vision shook as he stepped toward the warehouse, the same way videos of someone running with a GoPro looked. The ground seemed to bounce, and a wave of dizziness came over him. Shelby.
Things inside were wrong. Broken. His brain wasn’t working right. Shift! But his wolf, where was his wolf? That place where it resided felt hollow, only a speck of the presence that usually filled it remained. What is this?
He took another step toward the warehouse and kicked something. His vision still unstable, he peered down and saw a silver metal vial. He picked it up and squinted at one end. Was that a needle? A syringe.
Despite his sluggish mind and injured body, Kale understood. Yes, he could feel some kind of poison coursing through him, something attacking his wolf. Silver shrapnel plus the poison. He couldn’t heal. Couldn’t shift. He fell to his knees on the gravel and dirt.
“I can’t feel you,” he whispered, speaking to his wolf, but realizing he also meant Shelby. Then, he fell face first to the ground and watched the world spin before his eyes languidly closed.
Far below the surface of his consciousness, he felt something within him thrum.
Shelby, fully in her wolf, lurked on the catwalk above the hazy bank of gas below her. Even the trace amount she had inhaled while darting up the stairs had stung her nose and eyes. Beams of red cut through the acidic smoke, searching. Wispy curls rose and wafted against a stack of pallets, almost seeming to caress it.
Movement in the haze. A low rumble stirred in her chest. They were closing in on her dad.
Shelby?
She knew that voice. Elias? I’m here.
You shifted, he said to her mind through the pack link.
Yes. Where are you? You’re scared. I can feel it.
The manor is under attack. I’m almost there.
How . . . can I speak with you from this distance?
Alphas and Omegas have unique connections, so I’m told. Apparently true. You’re the first Omega we’ve had in the pack.
Then she heard and felt others in her mind, though she could not speak with them from so far away. Gennesaret. Sadie. Dakota and Chenoa. The others of the pack. She felt their concern, their fear. Their rage. The Southebys? I can’t sense them.
Shelby felt Elias’s grief, and she responded reflexively to counter it, sending him reassurance.
They are dead, Elias said.
Kale . . . ?
Their severed link flailed in her heart like a torn sail in a storm, its moorings snapped. Elias struggled to keep himself from despair. Yes, she could feel it brimming inside him.
I . . . do not feel him, he said. But nor did I feel him die like I did the Southebys.
Below, another swirl of smoke caught Shelby’s attention, faster than the first. The smoke parted for brief moments. She saw her dad, his knife at another man’s throat, a quick pull of his arm. The other man jerked, but her dad’s hand over his mouth muffled his surprised yell. Shelby smelled the fear, the scent of fresh blood. She salivated. No, her wolf salivated.
“Found your sniper,” Grant said.
“You were always good.”
Shelby growled louder at hearing Sherman’s voice.
“Uh-oh, sounds like someone’s awake,” Sherman said.
No, she was not awake. She was dying. The rage inside her wailed more, like the death throes of her heart, not the focused power she needed it to be. Kale, please. She reached out for him through her wolf, using the same link through which she had first felt their life together from a different time. Their bond. A tendril vibrated through that link, so soft that she dared not even hope. A pulse. Such a weak and slow, yet wonderful thrumming. Kale.
Shelby smelled something different. The air around her carried a familiar scent. Her hackles raised in warning. Lucas. She whirled. He was there, gun raised. Shelby did not hesitate. She dodged just as he fired then sprang forward. She heard the snarls coming from her, heard the viciousness in her bark. Lucas cried out as she collided with him, and they both rolled. That scarred face of his—she had done that. And she no longer felt guilt. He came to his feet at the same time she did. She bared her fangs, tasting the air rife with his fear but also something else. Lucas was aroused. He liked the pain, the death. She smelled his need to dominate and hurt others.
His gun lay roughly six feet from him. Shelby growled a warning then leaned toward it.
“Oh don’t worry, I’ve got what you need,” he said with a sadistic grin. “I promise to finish this time.”
Lucas dove for the weapon. Someone stepped on the gun before he reached it and punched him viciously, sending Lucas spinning. Shelby stared in wonder.
Kale! she screamed through their link, but it bounced back to her. The link was too thin. She still couldn’t feel him. But he was there! Standing right before her.
Oh. And naked. So there was that.
He stumbled, nearly falling to a knee. Then she saw the blood, how he shook as he struggled to remain on his feet. Why wasn’t he in his wolf? And further, how had he made it through the smoke below up to her? It should have burned him severely.
“Fire escape,” Kale said, as if knowing her thoughts. He looked at her with those deep hazel eyes that usually radiated such strength. But now, Shelby only saw pain in them. “You’re beautiful,” he said. “I’ve never seen a blue coat before.”
Blue? Was her coat blue?
Kale smiled sadly, then coughed. It sounded like a wheeze and Shelby began to sense the gravity of his injuries.
Lucas recovered and wiped blood from his mouth. “How’d you like that cocktail I gave you? Honestly, thought you were dead, but ya know, had to be cautious. You can’t feel it, can you? Your wolf? That’s because I killed it. Looks like you’re not too far from joining it.”
Kale’s balance failed him, and he stumbled to a knee, striking the metal plank of the catwalk hard.
What was Lucas saying? Kale’s wolf . . . was dead? Shelby pushed her mind into that thrumming she had felt earlier that she identified as him, his wolf. So faint. Fading.
Shelby came up next to Kale, and he leaned on her.
“I can’t heal,” he whispered. “Can’t . . . shift.”
“That’s because I killed you!” Lucas hissed. “Me. I did that! I put that dog in you down!”
Shelby raised her glowering eyes to the boy that brought such pain to her and, now, to the man she loved. Kale slumped, and Shelby felt his full weight lean into her. His body went limp. Pain wrenched Shelby’s heart, and she howled.
“That’s right, you pathetic whelp. Cry. Whine!”
Lucas dove again for the gun during Shelby’s distraction, but she reacted with the ferocity of her lupine side. Her claws raked his leg, tearing through his pants. He yelled out but grabbed the gun and fired wildly. Shelby ducked. Something burned against her rib cage. Glancing hit. The pain focused her, and she leaped again for Lucas. Her jaws found his neck, but she hesitated. Lucas froze.
“Don’t kill me. Please.”
She wanted to. How many had he hurt? Shamed? Broken? How many more would he in the future? And Kale, Lucas had done something to him, perhaps killed him. But could she kill? She had before. Nicholas’s pack. But that wasn’t me. It had been, though. Conscious or not, she and her wolf made up her whole being.
“Shelby, please,” Lucas said.
She felt his neck muscles constrict beneath her fangs. Forgiveness . . . could she be that strong? A flash, a dull glint of light came toward her side followed by sharp pain. The knife took her in the shoulder. She whimpered and pulled away. Lucas laughed.
She thought she heard her dad calling out to her from some distance, but the burning and pulsing within her drowned him out. Dim though it was in the warehouse, Shelby’s vision turned amber, and the edges shook, though Lucas remained perfectly in focus. Fury drove her forward. She knocked into Lucas, clawing at his chest, tearing him open. Rather than hesitation, this time his screams brought out more savageness as Shelby sensed wounded prey. She tore t
hrough clothing and flesh, ignoring his desperate pounding on her, his pleas, another stab to her shoulder that barely missed her neck. When her jaws found his throat again, she sunk her teeth in deep, savoring the salty thickness of the blood.
And Lucas went still.
The silver haze thinned. Grant heard Lucas’s scream stop short. A thudding sounded from the corner staircase. Grant spun. The sound of something being dragged . . . He squinted. Through the thinning smoke, Grant saw a wolf—Shelby—hauling something by her teeth. A body trailing a bloody mess.
“No!” Sherman cried out, a tortured sound.
Grant caught sight of him breaking from cover, sprinting toward Shelby. Sherman raised a pistol and fired recklessly. Shelby tried to scamper to safety but Grant heard several whimpers as rounds struck his daughter.
Grant sheathed his knife in one swift motion and brought his free hand to steady his aim. He fired, and missed. New sweat broke out on his spine and the nape of his neck. He took aim again at Sherman, at his ear, and squeezed the trigger. Sherman ducked, as if anticipating the shot. Of course he had been. Grant fired repeatedly, but the hunter was deft in his evasion. Grant’s slide locked back, his magazine emptied. Shelby limped, fear in her amber eyes as Sherman approached with furious intent. He threw his spent pistol aside and drew a knife. She barked savagely but the hunter did not seem impressed.
“You killed him!” Sherman cried.
Grant charged his former friend. The pain in his hip made him do a fast hobble more than a run. He threw the pistol aside and just as the hunter reached Shelby and his dead son, tackled him. A lightning barrage of fists and elbows hit Grant in the stomach and head. A sharp elbow to his temple sent him spinning, followed by a merciless kick to his wounded hip. He actually felt tears spring to his eyes, and he cried out amid the white hot pain. Shelby, wounded and bleeding, attacked, but Grant could see her timidity, brought on by her own wounds. A blade emerged from the toe of Sherman’s boot, and he kicked Shelby full in the ribs. She howled. Grant’s chest ached from the sound of his daughter’s agony. But Shelby, despite her wounds, launched herself again and when Sherman attempted a second kick, caught his leg with her fangs. He pounded Shelby’s head with a hammer fist and she flinched but did not release. Sherman gasped as Shelby’s clutched teeth dug deeper, and Grant knew bones broke beneath her bite.
Grant intercepted Sherman’s next blow to Shelby’s head, landing his own volley of attacks that stunned Sherman and sent him reeling backward, free of Shelby’s fangs. Blood flowed from his nose.
“Ah, I think you went and broke it,” Sherman said. He spat blood and limped tenderly on his right leg, blood flowing over his boot and onto the ground. “But the righteous must suffer all manner of pain and evil for the world’s sake, just as our Master did.” He retrieved a silver tube from his tactical vest, popped the cap on one end, revealing a needle, and slammed it into his thigh. “That’ll take care of your infected saliva in my blood, Miss Brooks.”
Grant heaved a breath. He knew at least one rib was broken. Shelby slunk back, behind her dad, also limping badly.
“Oh, now, he can’t save you, darling,” Sherman said. “Look, he can barely stand. Besides, I owe you.” Sherman pointed to Lucas’s body. “For my boy. Twice now.” The hunter smiled a bloody grin. “Tell me, Miss Brooks, did your father ever tell you how he met your mother?”
Shelby’s ears perked up. What was Sherman saying? Of course she knew the story: they met after one of his missions when he was on leave and got married shortly after that. But as the often-repeated story played in her mind, she sensed a fraying at the edges. Something rang false. Her wolf could sense it. She felt her blood pulsing in her ears and wounds. At least two silver rounds were still in her, preventing her from healing. The entry points pulsed with agony.
“Enough, Sherman,” Grant said. “We’ll finish this. You and me.”
“Oh, she’ll want to hear this. See, Miss Brooks—can you hear me in there? I always wondered if you can still comprehend language in that satanic form—your daddy here, before he betrayed us and the Lord’s errand, was sent to kill your dear mother.”
What? Shelby growled.
“It’s true, I promise you,” Sherman continued. “Our projections of the bloodlines led us to see that eventually through Moriahna’s line would be born the harbinger of death your own Mystics tell of.”
Shelby stepped back from her father. Chenoa’s words came back to her. The Summer Omega is a messenger that opens the way for destruction.
“It might seem odd, naturally, that a hunter would place any stock in Lycan nonsense, but we have to admit that your Mystics have been strikingly accurate, to our dismay.”
“The Summer Omega legends are just stories,” Grant sneered. “You’ve used them to justify murder.”
“Murder? No, Grant, you know just as well as I do. This isn’t murder. This is extermination of that which threatens the Children of God. It is the work of righteousness. Even something as vile as cancer can do His work at times.”
Shelby took another step back. Her wounds ached and her mind spun, and her wolf retreated at the revelations. Her own father had been sent to kill her mother? Could that be true? This was Sherman who was talking . . . but . . . Shelby began to shift back to herself.
“Oh see, now that’s heartbreaking,” Sherman said, looking at Shelby. “They only do that when they’re near death. You know that, Grant. She must be close to bleeding out. Still, I see what Lucas always saw in her. She is a beauty. Poor thing.”
“Dad?” Shelby whispered. She hugged the ground, pressing her breasts on the cold floor, feeling somewhat foolish for even trying to hide her nudity. “Is it true?”
Grant glanced over his shoulder. She could only make out the side of his face, but even in the darkness, she could see the truth on it. Shelby’s heart lurched. In a pained voice, she asked, “Was it you? Was the cancer a lie?” Her voice growled now. “Did you kill her?” Her emotions made her logic run afoul. She could feel them tinkering with her perceptions of reality. Or maybe that was what happened when you were dying.
“No,” Grant said in husky tones. He turned more toward her. “I loved your mother more than anything, Shel. Yes, I was a hunter. Yes, I’ve killed Lycans. Yes, she was my mission. Once.” He swallowed. “But things changed. We fell in love, and she forgave me. I can’t understand how she did that, but she did. And you, Shel, you are the evidence of that love.”
“She’s evidence of their blasphemous Mystics being correct,” Sherman interrupted. “Nothing more, Grant. You see that now. Don’t you? She is the manifestation of the Summer Omega prophecy. And you know what that means! You know what the world will become! She must die!”
“Dad?” Shelby felt herself slipping. But she sensed something else in Sherman’s words, her Omega senses tingling even as they diminished. Even something as vile as cancer . . . “He’s lying about mom. How she died.”
“Shelby, hold on, kiddo,” Grant said with choked emotion.
She saw him turn back toward Sherman. “He’s lying,” Shelby rasped.
“What is she saying?” Grant asked his old comrade, still squared off, standing between Shelby and Sherman. She saw her dad stagger slightly.
Had the floor ceased to be cold? Or was she just going numb? Kale . . . come back to me.
“Oh, I was hoping we wouldn’t have to get to this part,” Sherman said. “Best to let bygones be bygones.”
“You seem awfully fond of stirring up the past,” Grant said. “What about Moriahna’s death aren’t you telling me?”
Sherman rolled his eyes. How could he be so callous and flippant? His son lay there, not five feet away, dead.
“Fine, fine,” Sherman said. “I killed her.”
Grant shook his head. “I was there in the hospital with her, from diagnosis through treatment to the end. It was cancer.”
“Yes, of course, you’re right. But how did she develop cancer?”
Shelby barely h
eard the conversation, drifting in and out. Please, Kale. Her father had hunted her mother. To kill her. She pulled herself farther away, sliding on the hard floor.
“It just happened!” Grant shouted. “There’s no explanation for these things.”
“Aflatoxin,” Sherman said. “Large doses of it, of course. Well, not as large as it would take to infect a human. Doesn’t take much for cancer to take hold in them, you know. You can’t appreciate how difficult it was to obtain the right compound, the costs we incurred. It took over a year to figure out how to get it into that vixen you betrayed us for, but eventually we did. Too late, I’m afraid to say, because she still birthed that whelp of yours. Is she still alive back there?”
“You’re lying,” Grant said between clenched teeth.
“He’s not lying,” Shelby moaned. And again she dragged herself farther away. The emotional pain rivaled her physical pain, and she had to withdraw from her dad. His presence seemed to inflame her wounds suddenly. He was a hunter. Like Sherman. As she retreated, she felt more and more numb. Slipping. Fading. That was okay, though, wasn’t it? Would she be with Kale if she just let go? But still, she felt that faint thrum. He still fought, tenuous though his strength seemed. Shelby wished she had his will to live, but after Sherman’s words . . .
She closed her eyes.
Fury boiled in Grant, the air brittle with tension. Questions burdened his mind, but doubt did not. He knew Sherman had spoken the truth. He heard the truth in his words, backed by Shelby’s declaration.
“He’s not lying.”
Her voice sounded farther away. Weaker. Worse, it sounded slightly accusatory . . . toward him. But the fury that raged in him . . .
“You killed her,” he said in a dangerous, low tone.
